Location: Kenya

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African Intersex Movement – Africa’s regional intersex network – established

Between the 17th and 19th of June 2019, 21 Intersex activists representing several African countries got together for a regional Intersex activist meeting in Kenya. While there, they founded African Intersex Movement, a new network led by African Intersex activists with the aim of sharing information, skills and resources.

Between the 17th and 19th of June 2019, 21 Intersex activists representing several African countries got together for a regional Intersex activist meeting in Kenya.

In recalling the 2017 statement as our guide, We the African Intersex activists wish to announce that we have collectively launched African Intersex Movement, a network led by African Intersex activists with the aim of sharing information, skills and resources.

We exist to amplify the voices of African Intersex people at the regional level.

We offer ourselves as the African Intersex reference of intelligence for stakeholders and allies who are interested in strengthening the ongoing  liberation work for intersex peoples rights and autonomy.

We affirm that intersex people are real, and we exist in all countries of Africa. As intersex people in Africa, we live in a society that perpetuates violence and killings of intersex people by cultural, religious, traditional and medical beliefs and practices.

We aim:

  • To put an end to infanticide and killings of intersex people led by traditional and religious beliefs.
  • To put an end to mutilating and ‘normalising’ practices such as genital surgeries, psychological and other medical treatments through legislative and other means (such as education, policy and treatment protocol change). Intersex people must be empowered to make their own decisions affecting their own bodily integrity, physical autonomy and self-determination.
  • To include intersex education in antenatal counselling and support.
  • To put an end to non-consensual sterilisation of intersex people.
  • To depathologise variations in sex characteristics in medical practices, guidelines, protocols and classifications, such as the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases.
  • To ensure that sex or gender classifications are amendable through a simple administrative procedure at the request of the individuals concerned. All adults and capable minors should be able to choose between female (F), male (M), intersex or multiple options. In the future, sex or gender should not be a category on birth certificates or identification documents for anybody.
  • To raise awareness around intersex issues and the rights of intersex people in communities and society at large.
  • To create and facilitate supportive, safe and celebratory environments for intersex people, their families and surroundings.
  • To ensure that intersex people have the right to full information and access to their own medical records and history.
  • To ensure that all professionals and healthcare providers that have a specific role to play in intersex people’s well-being are adequately trained to provide quality services.
  • To acknowledge the suffering and injustice caused to intersex people
  • To build intersex anti-discrimination legislation in addition to other grounds, and to ensure protection against intersectional discrimination.
  • To ensure the provision of all human rights and citizenship rights to intersex people, including the right to marry and form a family.
  • To ensure that intersex people are able to participate in competitive sport, at all levels, in accordance with their legal sex. Intersex athletes who have been humiliated or stripped of their titles should receive reparation and reinstatement.
  • To recognise that medicalization and stigmatisation of intersex people result in significant trauma and mental health concerns.
  • In view of ensuring the bodily integrity and well-being of intersex people, autonomous non-pathologising psycho-social and peer support be available to intersex people throughout their life (as self-required), as well as to parents and/or care providers.

We call to action :

  • Community leaders to engage in intersex education to dispel misconceptions and stigma around intersex people.
  • Human rights organisations to contribute to build bridges with intersex organisations and build a basis for mutual support and meaningful engagement. This should be done in a spirit of collaboration and no-one should instrumentalise intersex issues as a means for other ends.
  • Funders to engage with intersex organisations and support them in the struggle for visibility, increase their capacity, the building of knowledge and the affirmation of their human rights.

For further information and inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]

Intersex Persons Society of Kenya (IPSK)

IPSK started in Nairobi on November 2016 to provide support and creating awareness as well as gathering data to establish the identifiable presence of intersex persons in Kenya, the identifiable presence of practice or beliefs that the human rights, dignity or lives of all such persons.

IPSK started in Nairobi on November 2016 to provide support and creating awareness as well as gathering data to establish the identifiable presence of intersex persons in Kenya, the identifiable presence of practice or beliefs that the human rights, dignity or lives of all such persons. IPSK succeeded in their goal to have the “intersex” category included in the national census in August 2019. They are continuing their advocacy work by sensitizing the senators to have intersex people included in registration and health–related bills. They also participated in many media interviews, and create a publication on intersex stories about mental health. On October 26th they organized a public intersex gathering for IAD, to reclaim public space.

Jinsiangu

Jinsiangu was founded in 2012 as a social justice organization working to create awareness of and respect for intersex, transgender and gender non-conforming (ITGNC) people in Kenya.

Jinsiangu is a Kenyan-based organisation established in 2012 for the purpose of increasing safe spaces for and enhancing the wellbeing and respect of ITGNC (Intersex, Transgender and Gender Non Conforming) people in Kenya. They have been working to achieve that through provision of information, and undertaking research, advocacy and high visibility activities. They have also been working to enable gender minorities to overcome challenges through the provision of psycho-social support since 2014, community building & providing holistic empowerment opportunities, and facilitation of access to ITGNC specific health care. In tandem with this, they have been engaging in advocacy awareness campaigns and outreach work targeting medical practitioners, law enforcement and different partners including various departments of the Kenyan government.  

 

UHAI EASHRI

UHAI is Africa’s first indigenous activist led and managed fund for and by sex workers and sexual and gender minorities.

UHAI is Africa’s first indigenous activist led and managed fund for and by sex workers and sexual and gender minorities. UHAI believes in African activists’ voice in resourcing the struggle for equality, justice and dignity for Africa’s sex workers and sexual and gender minorities. UHAI is changing the narrative of how Africa’s human rights and health struggles are resourced from one of ‘foreign assistance’ to one of ownership and self-determination by the very activists who live the struggles. UHAI supports civil society organising for and by sex workers and sexual and gender minorities in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda with flexible and accessible grants; capacity support; support for Pan-African advocacy and organising (including support for activist-led convening); and research and documentation. Over the last 7 years, UHAI has made US$6 million in grants to Eastern Africa’s sex workers and sexual and gender minorities. Eastern African activists themselves determine most of these grants. UHAI has provided multi-year capacity support to more than 50 community organisations; supported numerous Pan-African advocacy engagements and convening; and contributed to the repertoire of knowledge on Eastern Africa LGBTI and sex worker human rights and health. UHAI just concluded a landscape analysis of the context in which Eastern Africa’s trans, intersex and gender non-conforming communities organise and exist. The analysis shares information on five thematic focus areas: legal environment, public discourse, health, lived realities and organising landscape.